Josephine Herbst / by Elinor Langer.

"An Atlantic Monthly Press book."

Includes bibliographical references (pages 333-363) and index.

Part one / Introduction : 1. "If in Fact I Have Found a Heroine..."

Part two / The little strands and trees : 2. Magicians and their apprentices -- 3. Shakespeare Avenue -- 4. "I Fairly Writhe..." -- 5. Preamble.

Part three / Unmarried : 6. Love — and revolution -- 7. "Grief Castle" -- 8. Following the circle -- 9. An even race.

Part four / The hour of counterfeit bliss : 10. Connecticut -- 11. New York -- 12. Erwinna -- 13. Key West.

Part five / The long tension of life : 14. "There'll Be No Distinctions..." -- 15. The music comes on strong -- 16. Feet in the grass roots -- 17. "The Most Unhappy Woman Alive" -- 18. Empty mailbox.

Part six / Tearing past stations : 19. Floating feather -- 20. "The Italian Front Isn't the Hardest..." -- 21. "Custer's Last Stand" -- 22. Song of Spain -- 23. Tearing past stations.

Part seven / It is reported : 24. Measuring sticks -- 25. "Somewhere the Tempest Fell..." -- 26. Witness -- 27. Blow, bugle, blow.

Part eight / Yesterday's road : 28. Animal hotel -- 29. Yesterday's road -- 30. A time of exposure -- 31. "Tell My Friends..."

"Josephine Herbst, a passionate young radical from Sioux City, Iowa, came to New York in 1919 and was widely regarded, before the end of the 1930s, as one of the most important 'women writers' in America. She wrote a trilogy of novels described decades later as the most 'sweeping' and 'ambitious' fictional reconstruction of American life ever attempted. As a journalist, she attracted attention not only from the political left but far beyond it, for her reports on the farm strikes of the Depression, the revolutionary movement in Cuba, the German resistance to Hitler, and the Spanish Civil War. Yet she outlived her reputation by thirty years [...] For various reasons — they are themselves part of the story — it is a story Josephine Herbst herself could never tell, though she spent years trying. In a narrative that is as original as it is revealing, Elinor Langer masterfully disentangles the mystery, and she shares her authoritative insights with the reader." -- from the dust jacket.